Largest Desert in the World - Desert Map Home » Records » Largest Desert The World's Largest Deserts A map showing the generalized location of Earth's ten largest deserts and a table of over 20 major deserts. World desert map: This map shows the generalized location of Earth's ten largest deserts on the basis of surface area. The table at the bottom of this page provides the names, generalized locations, and surface areas of over twenty major deserts. Base map by NOAA. Sand dunes in the Sahara Desert of Libya: Most people think of deserts as "sandy" landscapes. That is true part of the time. This is a view of sand dunes in the Sahara Desert of Libya - an area known as the Ubari (or Awbari) Sand Sea. Photo © iStockphoto / PatrickPoendl. What is a Desert? A desert is a landscape or region that receives very little precipitation - less than 250 mm per year (about ten inches). Approximately 1/3 of Earth's land surface is a desert.

There are four different types of deserts based upon their geographic situation: 1) polar deserts, 2) subtropical deserts, 3) cold winter deserts, and 4) cool coastal deserts. As shown on the map above, deserts occur on all of Earth's continents. The Largest Desert The two largest deserts on Earth are in the polar areas. The Antarctic Polar Desert covers the continent of Antarctica and has a size of about 5.5 million square miles. The second-largest desert is the Arctic Polar Desert. It extends over parts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. It has a surface area of about 5.4 million square miles. McMurdo Dry Valleys: The largest deserts on Earth are in the polar regions. This is one of the McMurdo "dry valleys" near Lake Hoare, Antarctica. The Canada Glacier is in the background. Photograph by Peter West, National Science Foundation. Non-Polar Deserts The rest of Earth's deserts are outside of the polar areas. The largest is the Sahara Desert, a subtropical desert in northern Africa. It covers a surface area of about 3.5 million square miles.

A list of more than twenty of the largest non-polar deserts can be found below. Vegetation of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona: Cacti and grasses in Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Photo © iStockphoto / vlynder. The Desert Environment When most people think of a desert, they imagine a landscape covered with sand and sand dunes. Although many deserts are sand-covered, most are not. Many desert landscapes are rocky surfaces. They are rocky because any sand-size or smaller particles on the surface are quickly blown away. Rocky deserts are barren wind-swept landscapes. Most deserts receive so little precipitation that surface streams usually only flow immediately after rainfall - unless the stream has a source of water outside of the desert. Streams that enter a desert usually suffer major water losses before they exit. Some of the water is lost to evaporation. Some is lost to transpiration (taken up by plants and then released to the atmosphere from the plants). And, some is lost to infiltration (water soaking into the ground through the bottom of the stream channel). Desert Fauna and Flora The plants and animals that live in a desert must be adapted to the environment.

Plants must be very tolerant to intense sun, prolonged periods without precipitation, and have an ability to prevent moisture loss to conditions of severe temperature ranges, dry winds, and low humidity. Animals must be able to tolerate temperature extremes, temperature ranges, and have an ability to survive with very little water. Many animals adapt to desert conditions by living underground and being active at night. Major Deserts of the World Name Largest Deserts in the World, Top Ten Largest Deserts Largest Deserts in the World Top Ten Largest Deserts in the World Top Ten Largest Deserts in the World The map below shows the locations of the ten largest deserts in the world, including the Sahara Desert and the Arabian Desert. Description: Map shows top ten largest deserts in the world. Disclaimer × Disclaimer : All efforts have been made to make this image accurate. However Compare Infobase Limited,its directors and employees do not own any responsibility for the correctness or authenticity of the same.

Largest Deserts in the World Rank North Africa (Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco,Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara) 3 Western Asia (Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen) 4 Southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa) 6 South America (Argentina and Chile) 8 Western Asia (Iraq, Jordan, and Syria) 9 North America (Mexico and United States) 11 North America (Mexico and United States) 15 Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) 16 South America (Chile and Peru) 23 Southern Africa (Angola and Namibia) 25 Iran About Deserts in the World Deserts are areas that receive little precipitation, classified as an area that receives less that 250 millimeters (10 inches) of annual precipitation on average. The classification also takes into account the potential evapotranspiration, or the amount of water that could be evaporated in the region.

Because of the lack of precipitation, deserts are often dry and barren in landscape, and commonly thought of as having hot climates. However, deserts can be hot or cold, and they exist in regions all across the world. The largest two deserts on Earth are both cold deserts, which are covered in ice and snow. About Polar Deserts The largest deserts in the world are polar deserts: the Antarctic Desert and the Arctic Desert. The Antarctic Desert covers an area of 13,829,430 square kilometers over the South Pole. Antarctica is the most extreme continent on Earth, as the coldest, driest and windiest place in the world ,and the highest elevation. The Arctic Desert is the northernmost region of the Earth, covering the North Pole over 12,726,937 square kilometers. The Arctic Desert is partially located in the United States, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Sahara Desert The third largest desert in the world, and the largest non-polar desert is the Sahara.

Situated in North Africa, the Sahara makes up parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. The Sahara Desert spans over 9,400,000 square kilometers across the continent, and is the world's hottest desert. The Arabian Desert is the fourth largest desert in the world, with an area of about 2,330,000 square kilometers. The Arabian Desert is situated on the Arabian peninsula, and makes up parts of Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Both the Sahara and Arabian Deserts are known for their sand and sand dunes, which are typical images of desert landscapes. The fifth largest desert on Earth is Asia's Gobi Desert. Situated in northwestern China and southern Mongolia, the Gobi Desert was created as a rain shadow from the tall Himalayan Mountains, which prevent rain from reaching Gobi. The Kalahari Desert is a subtropical desert in southern Africa, covering 900,000 square kilometers in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.

The Kalahari Desert ranks sixth in terms of largest deserts by area in the world. South America's Patagonian Desert is the seventh largest desert, at 670,000 square kilometers. The Patagonian Desert is located in Argentina and Chile, between the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Victoria Desert is next on the list, ranking eighth. The Great Victoria Desert spans about 647,000 square kilometers of Australia. The Syrian Desert has an area of about 520,000 square kilometers, and is situated in Iraq, Jordan, and Syria. The Great Basin Desert in the United States is the tenth largest desert in the world, covering an area of 492,000 square kilometers. Top Ten Largest Deserts Images Antarctica is a desert which has recorded an annual precipitation of only 200mm along the coast and the far less inland. It has no indigenous population. The As a cold desert, the Arctic Desert receives very little rain or snow. It serves as a habitat for organisms living in the ice, like zooplankton and phytoplankton.

As the largest hot desert in the world, Sahara Desert consists of rocky Hamada and ergs. Highest peak in the Sahara Desert is Emi Koussi. Located in Western Asia, Arabian Desert is a vast desert stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. As part of the Great Mongol Empire, the Gobi is a rain shadow desert. It is a cold desert and serves as the source of critical fossil finds, like dinosaur eggs. Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in southern Africa. It is home to a wide variety of migratory birds and animals. As the largest desert in Argentina, Patagonian is a cold winter desert. Volcanic rocks cover more than 120,000 sq. km of this desert. An interim Australian bioregion, the Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert area in Western Australia and South Australia. Syrian Desert is a combination of steppe and true desert, located in the northern Arabian Peninsula. Moreover, it is a pretty rocky and flat desert. Great Basin Desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America. It has a variable weather on any given day. What is the Largest Desert on Earth?

- Universe Today Universe Today What is the Largest Desert on Earth? Article Updated: 2 Sep , 2016 by Fraser Cain When you hear the word desert, what comes to mind? Chances are, you’d think of sun, sand, and very little in the way of rain. Perhaps cacti, vultures, mesas, and scorpions come to mind as well, or possibly camels and oases? But in truth, deserts come in all shapes and sizes, and vary considerably from one part of the world to the next. Like all of Earth’s climates, it all comes down to some basic characteristics that they share – which in this case, involves being barren, dry, and hostile to life. For this reason, you might be surprised to learn that the largest desert in the world is actually in Antarctica. How’s that for a curveball? Definition: To break it down, a desert is a region that is simply very dry because its receives little to no water. To be considered a desert, an area must receive than 250 millimeters of annual precipitation.

But precipitation can take the form of rain, snow, mist or fog – literally any form of water being transferred from the atmosphere to the earth. The Lut Desert of Iran, as observed by NASA’s Earth Observatory. It was here that the hottest temperature ever was recorded between 2003-9. Credit: NASA Deserts can also be described as areas where more water is lost by evaporation than falls as precipitation. This certainly applies in regions that are subject to “desertification”, where increasing temperatures (i.e. climate change) result in river beds drying up, precipitation patterns changing, and vegetation dying off. Deserts are often some of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth, as exemplified by the Sahara Desert in Africa, the Gobi desert in northern China and Mongolia, and Death Valley in California. But they can also be cold, windswept landscapes where little to no snow ever falls – like in the Antarctic and Arctic. So in the end, being hot has little to do with it. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that deserts are characterized by little to no moisture and extremes in temperature. All told, deserts make up one-third of the surface of the Earth.

But most of that is found in the polar regions. Antarctica: In terms of sheer size, the Antarctic Desert is the largest desert on Earth, measuring a total of 13.8 million square kilometers. Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and most isolated continent on Earth, and is considered a desert because its annual precipitation can be less than 51 mm in the interior. A Sun halo seen among the the landscape and ice flows of Antarctica. Credit and copyright: Alex Cornell It’s covered by a permanent ice sheet that contains 90% of the Earth’s fresh water. Only 2% of the continent isn’t covered by ice, and this land is strictly along the coasts, where all the life that is associated with the land mass (i.e. penguins, seals and various species of birds) reside. The other 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice which averages 1.6 km in thickness. There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 researchers inhabit the research stations scattered across the continent – the largest being McMurdo Station, located on the tip of Ross Island.

Beyond a limited range of mammals, only certain cold-adapted species of mites, algaes, and tundra vegetation can survive there. Despite having very little precipitation, Antarctica still experiences massive windstorms. Much like sandstorms in the desert, the high winds pick up snow and turn into blizzards. These storms can reach speeds of up to 320 km an hour (200 mph) and are one of the reasons the continent is so cold. In fact, the coldest temperature ever recorded was taken at the Soviet Vostok Station on the Antarctic Plateau. Using ground-based measurements, the temperature reached a historic low of -89.2°C (-129°F) on July 21st, 1983. Analysis of satellite data indicated a probable temperature of around -93.2 °C (-135.8 °F; 180.0 K), also in Antarctica, on August 10th, 2010. However, this reading was not confirmed. Antarctica’s McMurdo Station at night.

Credit: m.earthtripper.com Other Deserts: Interestingly, the second-largest desert in the world is also notoriously cold – The Arctic Desert. Located above 75 degrees north latitude, the Arctic Desert covers a total area of about 13.7 million square km (5.29 million square mi). Here, the total amount of precipitation is below 250mm (10 inches), which is predominantly in the form of snow. The average temperature in the Arctic Desert is -20 °C, reaching as low as -50 °C in the winter. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Arctic Desert is its sunshine patterns. During the summer months, the sun doesn’t set for a period of 60 days. These are then followed in the winter by a period of prolonged darkness. The third largest desert in the world is the more familiar Sahara, with a total size of 9.4 million square km. The average annual rainfall ranges from very low (in the northern and southern fringes of the desert) to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. All told, most of the Saraha receives less than 20 mm (0.79 in).

However, in northern fringe of the desert, low pressure systems from the Mediterranean Sea result in an annual rainfall of between 100 to 250 mm (3.93 – 9.84 in). The southern fringe of the desert – which extends from coastal Mauritania to the Sudan and Eritrea – receives the same amount of rainfall from the south. The central core of the desert, which is extremely arid, experiences an annual rainfall of less than 1 mm (0.04 in). Temperatures are also quite intense in the Sahara, and can rise to more than 50 °C. Interestingly, this is not the hottest desert on the planet though. The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 70.7 °C (159 °F), which was taken in the Lut Desert of Iran. These measurements were part of a global temperature survey conducted by scientists at NASA’s Earth Observatory during the summers of 2003 to 2009. In short, deserts are not just sand dunes and places where you might come across Bedouins and Berbers, or a place you have to drive through to get to Napa Valley.

They are common to every continent of the world, and can take the form of sandy deserts or icy deserts. In the end, the defining characteristic is their pronounced lack of moisture. In that respect, the polar regions are the largest deserts in the world, with Antarctica narrowly beating out the Arctic for first place. And going by this definition – i.e. cold, arid, and with little to no precipitation – we’re sure to find some particularly big deserts elsewhere in Solar System. After all, what is Mars if not one big, cold, arid, and extremely dry climate? Want more resources on the Earth? Here’s a link to NASA’s What is Antarctica? , and here’s NASA’s Visible Earth . We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth . Sources: If there was a section of the ocean where it never rained, would it therefore be a desert? d s r rao I think the characteristics of a desert include an area that is ” cold, arid, and with little to no precipitation”. So, the water content in the ocean disqualifies it to be called a desert.

redmudislander Its from space. There is no upside or downside. freethnkr5 The Top 5 Largest Deserts on Earth The Top 5 Largest Deserts on Earth km2 Sources: Top 5 of Anything research 2010. List Notes: Data is the top 5 largest hot deserts on earth and does not include cold deserts. If cold deserts were included the Antarctic polar desert would rank number 1 on our list at 14,000,000 km2 and the Arctic desert area could be considered as number two at 13,700,000 km2. This list also excludes desert complexes (deserts made up of other deserts) such as the Australian desert and the Arabian desert. Data is in square kilometres. Please note: many of the world's largest deserts are often broken down by geographers into smaller desert regions. Share on Social Media: Deserts cover more than one fifth of the Earth's land or about 35 million square kilometres of the earth's surface and they are found on every continent. A place that receives less than 25 centimetres (10 inches) of rain per year is considered a desert.

Deserts are part of a wider classification of regions called "drylands." These areas exist under a moisture deficit, which means they can frequently lose more moisture through evaporation than they receive from annual precipitation. Drylands are characterized by low rainfall and high rates of evaporation. They occupy 41 per cent of Earth's land area and are home to more than 2 billion people. Half of all people living in poverty live in drylands. They depend heavily on environmental services for their basic needs. People living in drylands, 90 per cent of whom live in developing countries, lag far behind the rest of the world in human well-being and development indicators. In developing countries, infant mortality in drylands averages about 54 children per 1,000 live births, twice as high as in non-dryland areas, and 10 times the infant mortality rate in developed countries. (a.), (b.) Despite the common conceptions of deserts as dry and hot, there are cold deserts as well. The largest hot desert in the world, northern Africa's Sahara, reaches temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) during the day.

But some deserts are always cold, like the Gobi desert in Asia and the desert on the continent of Antarctica. Others are mountainous. Only about 10 percent of deserts are covered by sand dunes. The driest deserts get less than one centimetre (half an inch) of precipitation each year, and that is from condensed fog not rain. (a.) The Sahara Desert, by far the largest desert in the world, has an overall area as large as the continental United States and is also one of the hottest deserts on earth. The Sahara desert stretches over areas of Northern Africa, from the Red Sea to the areas close to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. This desert shares it boundaries with the Atlas Mountains, the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, Sudan and valley of the Niger River and extends into 10 countries. Dust from the Sahara has occasionally been carried as far afield as the UK and Germany. The Sahara Desert accounts for around 8 per cent of the world's land area. There are an estimated 1,200 species of plant to be found in the Sahara. In the last 50 years the Sahara has spread south to cover an extra 65 million hectares.

Because of their highly specialized nature, desert species are particularly vulnerable to habitat disturbance. Surprisingly little is known and documented about deserts in terms of biological, ecological and cultural characteristics. The different deserts of the world are unique in terms of origin, evolutionary history and climatic patterns. (b.) 13 per cent of the world's population live in deserts and continuously high solar radiation makes deserts ideal locations for solar cell installations thus improving these economies. Solar energy from desert regions is predicted to become a strong new market and may fill the gap of fade out of nuclear power plants particularly in Europe. Top 5 facts sources: National Geographic. (2010). "Deserts: Arid, But Full of Life" Retrieved Dec 8, 20120. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2006). "Don't Desert Drylands: Facts About Deserts and Desertification." Retrieved Dec 8, 2010. Global Deserts Outlook. (2006). The Arabian Desert Solar Energy Consortium. (2010). Desert Energy Project: "Global Sustainable Energy Initiative" Retrieved Dec 8, 2010. What is the Largest Desert in the World?

(with pictures) What is the Largest Desert in the World? Last Modified Date: 29 December 2016 Copyright Protected: You won't believe these 10 facts about people The largest desert in the world is the interior of Antarctica. This has an area of about 14,000,000 km2 (5,400,000 sq mi). Rainfall in the Antarctic interior is extremely low, down to 20 millimeters (0.8 in) per year. This is partially because it is so cold that all liquid water quickly freezes solid and joins the ice pack. The vast majority of liquid lakes in Antarctica are more than a mile below the surface. Some of these lakes are actually lower than freezing temperature, but remain liquid due to the great pressure above. Antarctica has only two major rivers, the Alph River and Onyx River. The latter is the longest in Antarctica, with a length of just 30 km (18 mi). By comparison, the Nile River is 6,650 km (4,135 mi) in length.

Antarctica is not only the largest desert in the world, but also one of the oldest large deserts, forming 23 million years ago. Ad But when most people think of desert, they think of hot. The next two largest deserts in the world -- the Sahara Desert in Africa and the Arabian Desert in the Middle East -- are both very dry and very hot. The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert on Earth, and the hottest sustained temperature ever recorded on Earth was in the Sahara Desert, in September 1922 in Libya. The temperature was 58 °C (136 °F). Few large animals, camels and humans being two of them, can survive at such temperatures and dryness. The Sahara Desert and the Arabian Desert have areas of 9,100,000 km2 (3,320,000 sq mi) and 2,330,000 km2 (900,000 sq mi), respectively.

The Sahara Desert covers ten countries (Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia), while the Arabian Desert covers another ten (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen). The largest concentration of proven oil reserves in the world is found in the Arabian Desert. Although today's deserts seem big, the largest desert of all time on the planet was the interior of Pangaea, a super-continent which existed from about 300 - 150 million years ago. The desert there might have been as much as seven times larger than the Antarctic Desert today. Most of the interior of the continent would have been uninhabitable to many forms of life. The largest desert in the solar system is probably the surface of Venus. Venus' atmosphere has only .002% water vapor. The Earth's has about 1%. Venus' surface has temperatures exceeding 460 °C (860 °F), hotter than most broilers.

Ad Biggest Deserts on Earth | Sahara Desert & Antarctica Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC Big deserts Earth is a planet covered with habitable areas, but some of those locations are a little more hostile to life than others. In deserts, which generally are defined as areas that receive less than 10 inches (254 millimeters) of rain or snow annually, the plants and animals must subsist on this meager precipitation. The world's 10 biggest deserts are found on just about every continent, many of them forming in the shadow of immense mountain ranges that block moisture from nearby oceans or bodies of water. They're often the site of unusual rock formations and, in some cases, amazing archaeological finds. 2 of 12 Credit: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center Chihuahuan Desert 175,000 square miles (282,000 square km) Straddling the U.S.-Mexico border, the Chihuahuan Desert is bigger than the state of California, according to New Mexico State University. Parts of it are in the states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Less than 9 inches (228 mm) of rainfall falls on average every year, according to the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition. As with many other deserts worldwide, the Chihuahuan Desert formed in the rain shadow of both the Sierre Madre Occidental (on the west) and the Sierra Madre Oriental (on the east), which both stop water from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico from getting inland. Underneath the desert and New Mexico's Guadalupe Mountains lies more than 300 caves . Those in at least one of those regions, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, were created after sulfuric acid penetrated the surrounding limestone. 3 of 12 Credit: NASA/Robert Simmon, based on Landsat 5 data from the Global Land Cover Facility Great Basin Desert 190,000 square miles (492,000 square km) Unlike every other desert in the United States, the Great Basin is a "cold" desert — one where most of the precipitation falls as snow. Its geographic extent includes most of Nevada, part of Utah and parts of many surrounding states.

Rainfall in the region ranges between 6 and 12 inches (150 and 300 mm) annually. The desert came to be because it was in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California , according to the National Park Service. The desert, in turn, also affects surrounding areas. Strong winds known as the Santa Ana often blow into Southern California after forming in areas of high pressure in the Great Basin. The Great Basin is also home to some unusual rocks, such as some found in central Nevada in 2009 that were described as dripping like honey . The deformation is taking place due to changes in the Earth's mantle, which alters due to intense pressure and heat within Earth's surface. Heavier material in the lithosphere, as it warms up, sinks through the lighter mantle, trailing material after it. 4 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC Syrian Desert 200,000 square miles (518,000 square km) The Syrian Desert is described as an "arid wasteland" by Merriam-Webster.

Covering much of Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, the region is marked by lava flows and was an "impenetrable barrier" to humans until recent decades. Now, highways and oil pipelines cross the region, which receives less than 5 inches (125 mm) of rain annually, on average. Humans were able to reach parts of it in ancient times, though. One area, now dubbed " Syria's Stonehenge ," was discovered in 2009. It includes stone circles and possibly, tombs, according to a 2012 Discovery News report. The Es Safa volcano field near Damascus is Arabia's largest volcanic field. The vents found in that area were active about 12,000 years ago, during the Holocene Epoch. More recently, a boiling lava lake was spotted in the region around 1850.

5 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC Great Victoria Desert 250,000 square miles (647,000 square km) The Great Victoria Desert covers a great deal of Australia and is mostly made up of parallel dunes as well as some salt lakes, according to an atlas from the Government of South Australia. The dunes are mostly red sand that came from the Western Australian Shield, changing to white as one moves south due to sands coming from the coast. The Australian government describes the region as one with "variable and unpredictable rainfall." Averaging out data between 1890 and 2005, rainfall is about 6.4 inches (162 mm) annually. Due to the harsh environment, most of the desert is split between Aboriginal lands, conservation areas and crown land, with no major cities. One of the Outback's greatest ecological threats comes from camels, whose ancestors were imported from India, Afghanistan and Arabia during the 19th century for work in the desert.

A 2013 BBC report said the approximately 750,000 feral camels drink an ordinate amount of water and also damage infrastructure. "Camels are almost uniquely brilliant at surviving the conditions in the Outback," said explorer Simon Reeve in the report. "Introducing them was short-term genius and long-term disaster." 6 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC Patagonian Desert 260,000 square miles (673,000 square km) The Patagonian Desert is a large desert lying across much of Argentina. The desert and semi-desert area stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes, with mostly treeless plains, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Like California's Death Valley, the Patagonian Desert lies in the "rain shadow" of a high mountain range — in Patagonia's case, the Andes.

Some regions of the desert receive as little as 6 to 8 inches (160 to 200 mm) of rainfall a year, according to Dryland Climatology, a 2011 book by Florida State University meteorologist Sharon E. Nicholson. "When air masses are forced over mountains and downslope, they warm and their capacity for holding water vapor increases," wrote Susan Woodward, an emeritus geography professor at Virginia's Radford University, on a website about deserts . On the leeward side of a mountain, she added, evaporation happens faster than rainfall, creating an arid environment. 7 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team Kalahari Desert 360,000 square miles (930,000 square km) The Kalahari Desert covers large tracts of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.

It averages less than 20 inches (500 mm) of rain a year in, but some locations receive less than 8 inches (200 mm) annually, according to the 1991 book The Kalahari Environment by David G. Thomas and Paul A. Shaw. Described as "featureless" by the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Kalahari is mostly covered by sand sheets that were formed sometime between 2.6 million and 11,700 years ago, probably due to the action of wind and rain. The sheets have been virtually unchanged since then. The Kalahari was also a site of human activity thousands of years ago. In one excavated area, South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave, archaeologists found evidence of fires lit about one million years ago . A separate discovery of artifacts in Botswana's Tsodilo Hills implied humans performed rituals 70,000 years ago .

8 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC Gobi Desert 800,000 square miles (1.3 million square km) Encompassing large regions of China and Mongolia, the Gobi Desert is arid in parts and more "monsoon-like" in others, meaning it sees wet and dry seasons, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Rainfall varies from about 2 to 8 inches a year (50 mm to 200 mm), depending on the location. The eastern region in particular gets a lot of rainfall in the summer, similar to how monsoons operate in wetter regions. In 2011, strange zigzag patterns in the Gobi emerged in Google's pictures, prompting a range of conspiracy theories that even included aliens. But the lines were most likely used to calibrate Chinese spy satellites to help the spacecraft orient themselves in orbit, said Jonathon Hill, a research technician and mission planner at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. The Gobi is also a good spot for dinosaur-hunting.

A rare Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton uncovered in that region was auctioned off in 2012 , fetching $1 million amid a legal dispute. 9 of 12 Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center Arabian Desert 900,000 square miles (2.3 million square km) The Arabian Desert encompasses Saudi Arabia and surrounding countries such as Oman and parts of Iraq. How dry and hot the desert is depends on where you're standing. The interior of the desert can get to a scorching, dry 129 F (54 C). Areas on the coast and in the highlands, however, have more humidity and can also have fog and dew during the cooler parts of the day, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. On average, annual rainfall is less than 4 inches (100 mm), but depending on the region it can range anywhere from 0 to 20 inches (0 to 500 mm). But human activity has artificially irrigated and greened parts of the desert. Crop circles exploded in abundance in Saudi Arabia during the past three decades, according to a series of Landsat images.

These are possible because engineers drilled into a "fossil" water acquifer that is more than 20,000 years old, according to NASA. It has been estimated that at current rates of usage, the water will go dry in 50 years. 10 of 12 Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC Sahara 3.3 million square miles (8.6 million square km) The Sahara is notable not only for its vast size, but parching lack of rainfall. Annual precipitation in the world's second-largest desert is less than 0.9 inches (25 mm) every year. On the east side of the desert, according to NASA, rainfall could be as low as 0.2 inches (5 mm) annually. While water doesn't often fall to the ground, it's common for water droplets to hover above the desert as fog. There isn't much vegetation in the Sahara to hold on to heat after the sun goes down, so the temperatures can actually get quite cold at night. The sudden shift between day and night temperatures can bring about the fog.

The desert also features a high volcano, Emi Koussi , which is in Chad at the southeastern end of the Tibesti Range. Standing 11,204 feet (3,415 meters) above sea level, there are lava flows and other volcanic features that appear to be as young as two million years old. There is also an active thermal region on the volcano's south flank. 11 of 12 Antarctica 5.5 million square miles (14.2 million square km) Nestled around the South Pole, where the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded and which doesn't receive sunlight for months every year, it's sometimes hard to think of icy Antarctica as a desert. But it is the world's largest one because very little precipitation falls there — on average, it gets less than 2 inches (50 millimeters) a year, mostly as snow. Despite the low snowfall, vast glaciers cover 99 percent of Antarctica's surface. That's because the average temperature (minus 54 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 48 degrees Celsius) slows down evaporation to a crawl.

Over long periods of time, the snowfall accumulates at a rate faster than Antarctica's ablation, according to "Discovering Antarctica," a project of the U.K.'s Royal Geographical Society. Parts of Antarctica are showing strong signs of warming up along with global climate change, however. Temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) over the past 50 years — five times the rate of the rest of the planet. And scientists think that warm ocean waters could be melting Antarctica's glaciers as they flow under the floating tongues of ice. 12 of 12 What is the Largest Desert on Earth? - Universe Today Universe Today What is the Largest Desert on Earth? Article Updated: 2 Sep , 2016 by Fraser Cain When you hear the word desert, what comes to mind? Chances are, you’d think of sun, sand, and very little in the way of rain. Perhaps cacti, vultures, mesas, and scorpions come to mind as well, or possibly camels and oases? But in truth, deserts come in all shapes and sizes, and vary considerably from one part of the world to the next.

Like all of Earth’s climates, it all comes down to some basic characteristics that they share – which in this case, involves being barren, dry, and hostile to life. For this reason, you might be surprised to learn that the largest desert in the world is actually in Antarctica. How’s that for a curveball? Definition: To break it down, a desert is a region that is simply very dry because its receives little to no water. To be considered a desert, an area must receive than 250 millimeters of annual precipitation. But precipitation can take the form of rain, snow, mist or fog – literally any form of water being transferred from the atmosphere to the earth. The Lut Desert of Iran, as observed by NASA’s Earth Observatory. It was here that the hottest temperature ever was recorded between 2003-9. Credit: NASA Deserts can also be described as areas where more water is lost by evaporation than falls as precipitation. This certainly applies in regions that are subject to “desertification”, where increasing temperatures (i.e. climate change) result in river beds drying up, precipitation patterns changing, and vegetation dying off.

Deserts are often some of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth, as exemplified by the Sahara Desert in Africa, the Gobi desert in northern China and Mongolia, and Death Valley in California. But they can also be cold, windswept landscapes where little to no snow ever falls – like in the Antarctic and Arctic. So in the end, being hot has little to do with it. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that deserts are characterized by little to no moisture and extremes in temperature. All told, deserts make up one-third of the surface of the Earth. But most of that is found in the polar regions. Antarctica: In terms of sheer size, the Antarctic Desert is the largest desert on Earth, measuring a total of 13.8 million square kilometers. Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and most isolated continent on Earth, and is considered a desert because its annual precipitation can be less than 51 mm in the interior. A Sun halo seen among the the landscape and ice flows of Antarctica. Credit and copyright: Alex Cornell It’s covered by a permanent ice sheet that contains 90% of the Earth’s fresh water.

Only 2% of the continent isn’t covered by ice, and this land is strictly along the coasts, where all the life that is associated with the land mass (i.e. penguins, seals and various species of birds) reside. The other 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice which averages 1.6 km in thickness. There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 researchers inhabit the research stations scattered across the continent – the largest being McMurdo Station, located on the tip of Ross Island. Beyond a limited range of mammals, only certain cold-adapted species of mites, algaes, and tundra vegetation can survive there. Despite having very little precipitation, Antarctica still experiences massive windstorms. Much like sandstorms in the desert, the high winds pick up snow and turn into blizzards. These storms can reach speeds of up to 320 km an hour (200 mph) and are one of the reasons the continent is so cold. In fact, the coldest temperature ever recorded was taken at the Soviet Vostok Station on the Antarctic Plateau.

Using ground-based measurements, the temperature reached a historic low of -89.2°C (-129°F) on July 21st, 1983. Analysis of satellite data indicated a probable temperature of around -93.2 °C (-135.8 °F; 180.0 K), also in Antarctica, on August 10th, 2010. However, this reading was not confirmed. Antarctica’s McMurdo Station at night. Credit: m.earthtripper.com Other Deserts: Interestingly, the second-largest desert in the world is also notoriously cold – The Arctic Desert. Located above 75 degrees north latitude, the Arctic Desert covers a total area of about 13.7 million square km (5.29 million square mi). Here, the total amount of precipitation is below 250mm (10 inches), which is predominantly in the form of snow. The average temperature in the Arctic Desert is -20 °C, reaching as low as -50 °C in the winter. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Arctic Desert is its sunshine patterns.

During the summer months, the sun doesn’t set for a period of 60 days. These are then followed in the winter by a period of prolonged darkness. The third largest desert in the world is the more familiar Sahara, with a total size of 9.4 million square km. The average annual rainfall ranges from very low (in the northern and southern fringes of the desert) to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. All told, most of the Saraha receives less than 20 mm (0.79 in). However, in northern fringe of the desert, low pressure systems from the Mediterranean Sea result in an annual rainfall of between 100 to 250 mm (3.93 – 9.84 in). The southern fringe of the desert – which extends from coastal Mauritania to the Sudan and Eritrea – receives the same amount of rainfall from the south. The central core of the desert, which is extremely arid, experiences an annual rainfall of less than 1 mm (0.04 in). Temperatures are also quite intense in the Sahara, and can rise to more than 50 °C. Interestingly, this is not the hottest desert on the planet though.

The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 70.7 °C (159 °F), which was taken in the Lut Desert of Iran. These measurements were part of a global temperature survey conducted by scientists at NASA’s Earth Observatory during the summers of 2003 to 2009. In short, deserts are not just sand dunes and places where you might come across Bedouins and Berbers, or a place you have to drive through to get to Napa Valley. They are common to every continent of the world, and can take the form of sandy deserts or icy deserts. In the end, the defining characteristic is their pronounced lack of moisture. In that respect, the polar regions are the largest deserts in the world, with Antarctica narrowly beating out the Arctic for first place. And going by this definition – i.e. cold, arid, and with little to no precipitation – we’re sure to find some particularly big deserts elsewhere in Solar System. After all, what is Mars if not one big, cold, arid, and extremely dry climate? Want more resources on the Earth? Here’s a link to NASA’s What is Antarctica? , and here’s NASA’s Visible Earth .

We have also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast about Earth, as part of our tour through the Solar System – Episode 51: Earth . Sources: If there was a section of the ocean where it never rained, would it therefore be a desert? d s r rao I think the characteristics of a desert include an area that is ” cold, arid, and with little to no precipitation”. So, the water content in the ocean disqualifies it to be called a desert. redmudislander Its from space. There is no upside or downside. freethnkr5

Question: Which is the largest desert in the World?
Answer: SAHARA